There is a before and there is an after. There is a day, a moment when, abruptly, one life ends and another begins. In the blink of an eye, you are where you never desired yourself to be, a person unrecognisable to yourself, transformed beyond your own understanding. With no going back. This is what happened to me.

Catherine: Pushing through the crowds, I stop the first uniformed guard I find and try to explain why I have to board the very next train to London. He looks into the blank pallor of my face. I see him trying to read the turmoil.

I struggle to tell him that my husband has suffered some kind of stroke and that I must get to the hospital as quickly as possible. With few words, he takes my arm and steers me to a first-class compartment. It is the morning of Monday May 1, 2000, the bank holiday.

When I leave the train, more than six unbearable hours and two changes later, our friend Lena is standing on the platform. Her thinly veiled desperation tells me more than any words could. I find Hasso, finally, in a corner of an A&E department. He tries to speak but can emit only a long and heart-stopping sound that becomes a wail and ends in a sob. He is struggling to breathe and I can’t see any movement at all in his body. But it is his eyes that hold me.

I see the desperate pleading in them. They follow me wherever I move and are insistent in their effort to hold my attention. I struggle to get him to respond in some way to my questions. He can reply only with a terrible sobbing howl. I am in shock, but feel compelled to help him break through the barrier of silence. Since his eyes are the only thing he still appears to have any control over, I tell him to open them if he can hear and understand. Immediately they open wide. I tell him to close them, and he does. I think for a moment. The panic is bubbling up through my chest.

“Okay, don’t worry about trying to talk, just open your eyes for yes and close them for no . . . Are you in pain?”

Eyes open.

“A lot?”

Eyes closed.

“Thank God. Where does it hurt?” Stupid question. I try again. “In your chest?” No.

“Your legs, your back, your arms . . . ?” No.

“Your head?” Yes.

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